Costs Push The Rutgers Club to Leave College Avenue

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The Rutgers Club will move this summer from its longtime home on College Avenue.The Rutgers Club will move this summer from its longtime home on College Avenue. Credits: Rutgers University

By JACK MURTHA

May 25, 2017 at 1:05 AM

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — The Rutgers Club, a university restaurant intertwined with Scarlet Knight culture, will soon leave the College Avenue building where it has operated since its inception.

The club plans to relocate from the house at 199 College Ave. to the second floor of the Livingston Dining Commons in Piscataway in late August, according to an email sent from Felicia McGinty, Rutgers’ vice chancellor for student affairs, to students and faculty.

“In recent years, operating and maintaining the club in its current location has proven to be fiscally unsustainable,” she wrote. “This move will ensure the continuity of The Rutgers Club, which has been in existence since its first meal was served in 1957.”

What’s more, McGinty wrote, is that the white house with black shutters and a red door that accommodated the organization for 60 years is targeted for demolition under the master plan for the New Brunswick campus and the overhaul of College Avenue.

On its website, The Rutgers Club described the building as one of the city’s “venerable old houses.” It was built in 1915.

The club boasts more than 2,000 members, including alumni, faculty staff and university supporters, according to its website. Visitors may dine at the club, but only if they make reservations.

The institution’s new home will include a larger dining room, a “state-of-the-art” bar, outdoor patio seating, a full modern kitchen, a multi-purpose room for meetings and events and “additional technologies and amenities,” McGinty wrote.

“In partnership with the Rutgers Club Executive Committee, we will work to ensure that the new space carries a charm unique to the original Club,” she added. “This includes the relocation of Sir-Lunch-A lot and other sentimental artifacts.”

The restaurant plans to continue to host special events, such as a jazz night, sweethearts’ night and Mother’s Day, according to Rutgers. It will also serve meals on days when the university’s football and basketball play home games.

Existing employees will move to the new facility, McGinty wrote.

In the run-up to the demolition of the original building, the facility will remain available for meetings and events, she wrote. Reservations can be made through the university’s student centers reservation office.

The Rutgers Club is expected to host a grand reopening event in the fall.

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